How Big Is Africa Really? See What Fits Inside

Africa covers about 30.4 million km², which is about 20% of Earth's land. The United States, China, India, Greenland, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland together cover about 27.9 million km², and all of them fit inside Africa at true size. Mercator maps make Africa look much smaller than it is.

Twelve countries, and Texas for scale, placed inside Africa, each at its true size. Together they cover most of the continent.

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The numbers

Region	Area (about)
Africa	30.4 million km²
United States	9.83 million km²
China	9.6 million km²
India	3.29 million km²
Greenland	2.17 million km²
France (metropolitan)	0.55 million km²
Spain	0.51 million km²
Sweden	0.45 million km²
Norway	0.39 million km²
Japan	0.38 million km²
Germany	0.36 million km²
United Kingdom	0.24 million km²
Iceland	0.10 million km²
Total of the twelve countries	27.9 million km²
Left free inside Africa	2.5 million km²

Added up, the twelve countries come to about 27.9 million km². Africa has room for all of them by area, with about 2.5 million km² left over, more than the whole of Greenland. Texas (about 0.7 million km²) is in the picture for scale; it is part of the United States, so it is not counted twice.

Africa is also home to 54 countries and about 1.5 billion people, according to United Nations estimates.

Why normal maps get this wrong

Africa lies mostly between 35°N and 35°S, close to the equator, where the Mercator projection stretches the least. Countries such as Canada, Russia and Greenland lie far to the north, where the stretch is large. Placed side by side on the same flat map, the northern countries look huge and Africa looks modest.

The effect adds up. Greenland looks as large as Africa on most maps although Africa is about 14 times larger.

A continent of many sizes

Within Africa the differences are also large. Algeria alone covers about 2.38 million km², larger than Greenland. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Libya each cover over 1.7 million km². Many African countries are the size of whole European countries.

Try it yourself

1. Search for the United States in the search box ("Search for a country or region…") and add it.
2. Add China, India, Greenland and smaller countries such as Japan, Spain or Germany the same way.
3. Drag each country into Africa on the map. Open Tools → Stats to see the total area of everything you have loaded.

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More comparisons

• Greenland vs Africa
• Sahara vs the USA
• All countries at equator size
• Tutorial: moving and comparing regions

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